Marshal Stone stopped where favonovel.com was and did not press the advantage. Instead, favonovel.com slowly worked the tendons and bones of his wrist. Light moved over his dark-gold skin, and the aura of his flesh remained steady, whole, and undamaged.
His gaze swept over Jared with open contempt, his tone packed with scorn. “That’s all you’ve got? With that pitiful bit of skill, you dared come challenge the dignity of the celestials and force your way into Northern Abyss Gaol? Ridiculous!”
***
While Jared and Marshal Stone clashed head-on in a bloody battle of fists and sword, on the other side of the Ancient Battlefield, Gwendolyn’s deadly contest with Marshal Grey had already erupted in full.
Killing intent hid beneath every step, and each move carried a danger that could not be taken lightly. All his life, Marshal Grey had never fought by closing in and trading blows. He did not collide with brute force head-on. That was a battle instinct carved into his bones. He looked down on crossing blades with an enemy directly.
His battlefield had never been in open fists and visible footwork. It lay inside the formation, within illusions, deep in the spirit-killing without shape, defeating enemies without sound, vicious and hard to guard against.
Gwendolyn knew how many schemes favonovel.com had at his disposal. She gave favonovel.com no chance to set up a formation, gather power, or disturb favonovel.com spirit. The moment favonovel.com struck, favonovel.com used a killing move at full force.
Her wrist snapped. Cold light surged along the Frostbrand, and an Ice-Seal blade-flare condensed to the limit tore through the air at terrifying speed.
It went straight for Marshal Grey’s throat, the angle viciously tricky, the frost energy biting to the bone. Where the blade-flare passed, the air froze instantly.
Fine ice crystals drifted down in a soft rush, and frost energy spread across the Wastelands, cutting off the space favonovel.com could use to dodge. But at the very instant the blade-flare was about to reach him, an invisible silver barrier suddenly appeared in midair.
A faint glow flowed across it, and the barrier held with startling resilience.
Buzzzz…
A low, vibrating boom rolled out. The Ice-Seal blade-flare slammed hard into the barrier, bursting into a blinding glare as frost energy spilled in every direction. In the end, it thinned away little by little, failing to touch even a hair of Marshal Grey.
Marshal Grey stood still at the core of the array eye. His fly-whisk swayed lightly in his hand, his face unhurried, while a cold smile sat deep in his eyes.
“The last heir of the Frost Deity Branch… Your talent really does stand out, and your frostcraft is blessed by nature itself. Your reputation was not empty… Too bad… The moment you stepped into the depths of my Ninefold Malison, you became a bird in a cage. No matter how strong your combat power is, no matter how fast your sword moves, you have nowhere to use it. All you can do is wait here for death!”
As the last word fell, force snapped through his wrist. The Firmament Snare’s whisk whipped through the air at high speed, and the array patterns flared fully awake. Inside the great array, illusions multiplied in waves.
The sky spun. The earth seemed to roll. Everything around favonovel.com twisted and changed in an instant.
The Wastelands battlefield became a boundless ice-sealed illusion, and countless remnant-soul phantoms of prisoners who had died miserably in the prison howled as they lunged in, clawing at the mind. At the same time, countless sharp silver blades of light shot in from every direction. Each blade carried the full killing energy of True Immortal Realm Level Nine. They fell dense as rain, sealed every angle, and slashed together toward Gwendolyn’s vital points.
Gwendolyn’s face stayed cold and unchanged. Her mind held firm, untouched by the illusions pressing in around her.
The Frostbrand in favonovel.com hand moved fast, carving out a round, heavy ice-blue radiant barrier. The barrier closed around favonovel.com body, tight enough that not a single gap showed.
Ice crystals formed across the surface of the radiant barrier. Frost energy wrapped favonovel.com like armor, blocking every incoming silver blade of light outside it, while the clang of impact rang on without end. But there were too many blades.
The assault came one wave after another, with no pause at all. Cracks spread rapidly across the radiant barrier. Fine lines webbed over it like spider silk, leaving it one breath from breaking.
She had no choice but to keep driving spiritual power through favonovel.com body, feeding the barrier and forcing it stronger.
The spiritual power in favonovel.com spirit well drained away at terrifying speed. Her meridians grew sore and weak, fine sweat slowly beaded across favonovel.com forehead, and the weight pressing down on favonovel.com rose sharply.
“Whitebound Dominion!” Gwendolyn’s voice came out low and hard. She unleashed a wide-range frostcraft.
A vast, bone-cutting cold tide surged wildly out of favonovel.com body. It swept through the entire inner region of the great array and spread in every direction in a single instant.
Underfoot, the dark-red frozen soil hardened under a thick layer of white frost. Ice spread in sheet after sheet, and every trace of water vapor in the air condensed into ice crystals. Even the silver array patterns roaming across the ground were covered by ice. Their circulation speed slowed by a wide margin, and the light-blade offensive weakened with it, cutting the pressure down at once.
Marshal Grey’s brow tightened by the smallest degree.
For the first time, Gwendolyn’s ice had to be treated as a real threat. He had not expected Gwendolyn’s Ice-Seal nascence force to interfere directly with the great array’s operation. Worse, it checked the very foundation of his array arts!
“Your Ice-Seal spellcraft is refined enough. Unfortunately, your cultivation foundation is still one step beneath mine…” A cold glint crossed Marshal Grey’s eyes.
He snapped the fly-whisk hard, and several hundred silver motes of light suddenly appeared inside the great array. The motes burst open in mid-air. They turned into several hundred slender silver longswords. Packed so densely they blotted out the sky, they hung suspended overhead, every edge carrying a biting killing force.
“Ice Seal can only delay a dead end. It cannot break this great array. Today, you are destined to die trapped here!”
Several hundred silver longswords dove at the same time. They stabbed toward Gwendolyn together, fast as lightning, falling like a crashing storm with no space left to dodge.
Gwendolyn clenched favonovel.com teeth and focused every thread of attention. She drove the Frost-Deity nascence with all favonovel.com strength. In an instant, the ice-blue panoply appeared over favonovel.com body, fitting close around favonovel.com as ancient sigils moved with a fain glow, giving the protection around favonovel.com a fierce resilience.
The Frostwrought Panoply held steady against most of the silver longswords’ cutting edges and protected the vital points across favonovel.com body. Even so, scattered swords slipped through the gaps in favonovel.com defense, slicing open her skin and leaving fine wounds behind.
Warm blood seeped out slowly. It stained favonovel.com plain white dress red, the color stark against the pale fabric. But favonovel.com face did not change. She gave no cry of pain and did not step back. Her focus stayed pulled tight, and the Frostbrand in favonovel.com hand never stopped moving.
One by one, favonovel.com cut apart the longswords closing in on her, holding favonovel.com ground inside the array without yielding even half a step.
***
On the main battlefield, the life-and-death struggle between Jared and Marshal Stone grew more savage by the breath. Fist and sword kept colliding, and the killing intent rose until it seemed to flood the sky.
Marshal Stone’s attacks grew wilder and heavier. Every punch poured out his full strength, crushing the space around favonovel.com in every direction. The Aurelian Deathless Body had been pushed to the Top Level of its normal state.
Dark-gold radiance blazed around him, dazzling like a low-hanging sun, with rolling heat waves and a pressure that bore down on everything nearby. The range of his fist force spread wider and wider. It almost sealed the entire combat zone. No matter how fast Jared’s movement technique was, favonovel.com could no longer avoid every attack completely.
Razor-sharp fist-force streaked past favonovel.com again and again, close enough to shave the air off his skin. Some of it still found him. It slammed into his shoulder, his arms, the hollow beneath his ribs, and the broad line of his back, leaving more dark bruises spreading under the skin as the damage piled higher across his body.
Golden blood essence kept spilling from the corner of Jared’s mouth. Drop after drop struck the dark red frozen soil beneath him, staining that small patch of ground a deeper crimson. Yet Jared’s frame never went down.
The battle light in his eyes had not dimmed by even half a degree. He bore the pain tearing through his body and forced every thread of attention onto the fight.
His gaze stayed locked on Marshal Stone’s every move, every strike, every shift of stance, patiently hunting for the kind of opening that flashed past almost before it existed.
The heart of the battle had long since become clear to him. Marshal Stone’s body was nearly untouchable, his strength tyrannical, his defense almost impossible to break, and his endurance terrifyingly deep. Those were his absolute advantages. But that same reliance on brute physical power created the one place the armor did not cover.
His attacks were wide, heavy, and completely committed. Each time favonovel.com pulled back a fist or turned his body after a strike, there had to be a gap, no matter how brief. That gap was so small it barely registered.
Ordinary cultivators would never catch it at all. But Jared’s spirit sense stood far beyond others of his level and his perception was sharps enough to lock onto that fleeting instant with precision. If favonovel.com could endure the damage and seize the flaw, there was still a chance to turn the fight around!
Visit VIRTUAL NOVEL for more available chapters of this title!